Hospital lockdown amid fears patient has Ebola symptoms

A patient feared to have the deadly and contagious Ebola virus has put a Scottish hospital in lockdown.

The suspected patient had just arrived back in Glasgow from an affected Ebola country.

They went to the hospital after developing symptoms.

The unit has been sealed off to the public on Tuesday afternoon.

If confirmed it would be the first Ebola case in Scotland for a decade.

A source told the The National: ‘Obviously Ebola is a deadly and contagious illness, and emergency measures had to be put in place immediately to protect both staff and any members of the public.

‘The person came to the Acute Receiving Unit, where people are sent by their GP or the health board’s 101 number to avoid having to present at accident and emergency. This was quickly shut down and sealed off from the rest of the hospital.

‘The person was assessed there and then taken elsewhere in the hospital. I believe they were put into confinement while the tests to establish if they have Ebola or something else are carried out.’

Another hospital worker told the Glasgow Times: ‘The mere mention of the word Ebola strikes panic into people. You think of it as a disease that happens elsewhere.

‘The hospital has strict protocols and procedures to deal with these types of rare occurrences and everything seemed to be followed to a tee, but it is still a worry for those who were on duty at the time.’

A spokesperson for Public Health Scotland (PHS) said: ‘Public Health Scotland is working closely with UKHSA to assess routes by which travellers may enter the UK from affected countries.

‘The risk from people arriving in the UK from affected areas is low and the NHS has safe procedures in place for detecting and managing any such cases.

‘PHS and NHS boards across Scotland have well established protocols for assessing and testing travellers arriving in the UK from areas affected by Ebola where necessary.

‘Where required, contact tracing will occur and contacts may undergo clinical assessment and precautionary testing.

‘The UKHSA Returning Workers Scheme (RWS) which aims to protect and monitor the health of those who may travel from the UK to affected areas for their work, has been activated.

‘Organisations deploying workers to affected areas where they may be exposed to Ebola through their work, should register those workers with the scheme.’

It came under a week after a French doctor working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) tested positive for Ebola after returning home.

France’s health ministry said the patient had been on a humanitarian mission and is currently isolating.

Those who may have come into contact with the patient are being traced, and the general risk the outbreak presents in Europe remains low.

Last week, it was revealed that the ‘first line of defence’ against the deadly strain of Ebola has collapsed.

Why is this Ebola outbreak so concerning?

The strain of Ebolavirus behind this outbreak, known as Bundibugyo, is rare and currently has no vaccine or treatment.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed this is the largest Bundibugyo outbreak on record.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a public health emergency last month following the outbreak.

Contact tracing – identifying the people an infected person has come into contact with – has just 43% coverage in DRC.

Oxfam fieldwork found that there are just 0.2 doctors per 1,000 people, and some 70 health facilities have been destroyed by conflict.

The years-long violence in DRC has displaced millions, including people in Ituri, complicating contact tracing efforts.